Planning for
the Millennium:
Cherniak Does It Right the First Time!

As we get closer
to the year 2000, it will be more and more important to be able
to deal properly with dates with full 4 digit years. To
deal properly with dates beyond 1999, it is necessary for a system
to allow the entry of dates beyond 1999 (and not assume "JAN 1/1901"
if someone enters the date "1/1/01"). It is also necessary to properly
sequence them in date-based reports: You don't want a report that
shows the leases ending in years "01", "02", "03" to come before
those ending in "97", "98", "99".

For many systems,
this will be a problem. In fact, literally millions of dollars are
being spent on converting systems to handle dates beyond the 20th
century. In one of the large Canadian Banks, for example, the conversion
for the millenium is the biggest single project within the `Information
Systems' division. What has become known as `The Year 2000' problem
has made the cover of just about every publication in the Information
Systems arena and many of the covers of the more popular publications
in the `business' press in general.

There
is no problem with Cherniak Software 'PowerDRIVE' systems as they
already have full functionality for a 4 digit year built in.
All input dates in a PowerDRIVE system allow for the entry of the
full 4 digits, and in all cases, dates are sequenced properly so
that a date in 1999 always comes before a date in 2001.

For speed
of data entry, you are not required to enter all four
digits of a year: if you enter only the last 2 digits, the system
automatically assumes the current century (or the most likely
century based on the context of the date). Also, for brevity,
display-only dates (e.g. in reports) are often shown as 2 digits
for brevity.

A number
of Cherniak clients have already been dealing with years greater
than 1999 in specifying (for example) lease ending dates.

Planning
properly for the millenium is one of the important things Cherniak
Software does in going the extra mile to take good care of its
clients in planning for future eventualities. Yet again, Cherniak
Software has shown that it knows how to do it right the first
time.